Nashville's vacation rental

New experiences create memories

Eight months ago, a friend suggested that we convert the who-knows-how-old-it-was building in our back yard into a house as a method of income. We took that idea and ran with it. Our tiny house has been up and running for just over 6 months, and, well, so much has happened.

As of today, Sunday, January 24, we have hosted 146 guests from 24 of the United States and 15 from five different foreign countries. Illinois sent us most of our guests (25) and Texas has come in second with 16. Our very first guests were from Sweden, and since then we have also hosted people from Australia, Poland, the UK and Ecuador.

We have not been able to meet face to face with each guest we hosted but we met most of them. From our wonderful guests that we did meet, we gained a roommate, received a thoughtful wedding gift, shared laughs, went out for drinks, made numerous new friends, and our first guests even called my grandma and sang “Happy Birthday” to her in Swedish. One guest from Arizona, who we now certainly call a friend, makes it a point to spend time with us every time he is here checking on the East Nashville condo that he is buying. Two friends of mine who moved to North Carolina stayed with us when they came to Nashville for a doctor appointment. Another couple, who knew a relative of mine from high school, stayed with us while they were passing through.

I have always loved traveling and meeting new people, but it’s a whole new experience having people choose to stay at our house and trusting us to share our favorite places with them. If they want to come and spend all day in the house, great. If not, that’s okay too! We have Netflix and a fire pit for those who want to stay home. We have books, magazines, brochures, food menus, magnets, etc. but it’s amazing to be able to share what we like to do here in Nashville and why. Although no one can possibly know all of the best places to go in one city, we’ll share our favorite places in hopes that you’ll fall in love with the city just like we did.

We may be complete strangers at first but we want to make our guests feel comfortable…like they are at their home away from home. If they’re coming to Nashville for the first time, we will most likely be the first impression, and that’s important to us.

We want our guests to come to our house and enjoy their visit. Just like Brian Chesky, who started Airbnb said, “repetition doesn’t create memories… new experiences do.”